108 CONFERENCE ON MILK PROBLEMS 



swished around, and that same dipper full is put into another 

 can and swished around, and that water is dumped out of that 

 into still another can. That is about as clean as the cans get, 

 frequently; very little more is done. If they do wash it out, 

 they put it out in the sun where the dust is flying, and there it 

 remains until the milk is put into it, perhaps. The man who 

 milks just spits on his hands before he milks, picks up a dirty 

 stool, rubs the surface of the cow's udder, and the dirt that he 

 gets on his hands off the stool, goes into the milk, so that the 

 milk which gets into the pail is dirty, and no precaution is 

 taken with it. At first, perhaps, there are only a few hundred 

 bacteria per cubic centimeter, but just a few minutes later it 

 may have fifteen or twenty thousand, and sometimes there are 

 many more than that. Later there arises that "cowy" odor 

 which is often incorrectly taken as a characteristic odor of 

 pure milk. Milk without manure in it, does not have that 

 "cowy" taste. When that sort of milk comes to town, you 

 put it in a bottle, and the dirt settles at the bottom of the 

 bottle, and you can see it. You can see, in an ordinary pint 

 bottle, a considerable sediment at the bottom. Many people 

 drink it without drinking the last half inch of it. If they 

 would only stop to think what that material is ! Now, that 

 milk has gathered up bacteria from all sorts of sources, and, 

 besides that, it is not kept cool. If it had been kept cool, it 

 would not be so bad, because twenty or thirty thousand bac- 

 teria to the cubic centimeter, perhaps, would not do so much 

 damage to the milk. But when it is allowed to remain warm, 

 that milk is about as good a culture medium for bacteria as 

 you could devise. Within five or six hours, if the milk is still 

 kept warm, there are millions of bacteria. Now, when you get 

 that number of bacteria in milk, you have changes taking place 

 in the milk which make it unfit for food. Milk is one of the 

 most perishable foods that we have, and that is the reason. 



By the time the milk reaches the city, if no precautions have 

 been taken with it, these bacteria have grown to millions. 

 Now, one of two things might happen. It sometimes happens 

 that those bacteria are not very harmful. They may be lactic 

 acid bacilli, and in the great majority of cases, perhaps nine 

 times out of ten, that is what it is, and the milk is merely sour 

 when it arrives, and sour milk isn't such a deleterious milk, 



